The main operational objective of diuretic therapy in patients who present congestive heart failure and hypertension is to reduce or to suppress excess bodily fluid. Effective diuretic therapy decreases cardiac size when the heart is dilated, and it reduces lung congestion and excess water. Consequently, external respiratory work diminishes and cardiac output would be redistributed in favour of systemic vascular beds other than that of the respiratory muscles; dyspnoea decreases markedly and there is a slight reduction in fatigue. This clinical improvement and the fall in body weight caused by diuretics entail an increase in effort capacity. Subsequent exercise training ameliorates the abnormal ventilatory response to physical effort and the skeletal muscle myopathy that occur in heart failure, and thereby it attenuates dyspnoea and decreases fatigue further. Loop and/or thiazide-type diuretics may be used to aug-